Image: istockphoto.com (Advent) Recently I received an email from my the waste company I subscribe to offering me the perfect solution for my planning and pre-Christmas clear-out…should I have any. This points to the concern so many of us have about getting ready for Christmas and the real panic experienced by some. I was talking… Read More
Tag: Catholic Blog
Celebrating Saint Bernadette and Lourdes
In the year 2001 I remember going to see the relics of St Thérèse of Lisieux which were on an eleven-week tour of Ireland. Now in 2024, we have the privilege of the presence of another saint amongst us, Bernadette of Lourdes. Bernadette Soubirous, the young peasant girl and shepherdess who witnessed apparitions of Our… Read More
We Are Family: St. Martha, Mary, and Lazarus of Bethany
Image: www.dominusest.ph In the New Testament, we find quite a few Marys but only one Martha! She was the sister of Mary and Lazarus of Bethany and up until February 2021, she had a feast day to herself on 29 July. In 2021 Pope Francis approved a decree changing the liturgical feast of St Martha… Read More
Rock Star Danny: A Champion for The Faith
Image: www.irishmirror.ie Last weekend I had the radio on in the background, tuned in to The Brendan O’Connor Show. He was interviewing the lead singer of The Script, Danny O’Donoghue. The Script are an Irish rock band formed in 2001 in Dublin by O’Donoghue, the late Mark Sheehan, and Glen Power. They have won 3… Read More
In Sickness & in Health: Marriage
Image: www.rsvplive.ie It was front-page news two weeks ago, the announcement of the breakdown of Ruth Langsford and Eamonn Holmes’ marriage. The pair had been together for more than two decades and married for 14 years. The former presenters of ITV’s This Morning are very popular in the UK and were seen as a golden… Read More
The Internet Saint – Carlo Acutis
Image: Wikipedia In the city of London on 3 May 1991, a baby boy was born to an Italian mother and a father who was partly English. His parents Antonia and Andrea were nominal Catholics who rarely attended Mass. Antonia came from a non-practising family and his father’s faith was lukewarm. They might well have… Read More
Celebrating the Holy Spirit- Pentecost
Image: medium.com This year the Feast of Pentecost will be celebrated on May 19. This is a very significant day because it is the birthday of the Church, the moment when the Holy Spirit utterly transformed the apostles from being fearful and without direction into a community empowered to carry on the mission of Jesus…. Read More
An Endless Conflict in the Middle East
Image: www.skynews.com As Christmas approaches and we prepare to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, the situation in the Middle East is a reminder of how much the world needs the Message the Son of God brought. Since the terrible events visited on Israel by Hamas on 7 October, we have been… Read More
The Last Miracle- Lazarus
Image: walkingintheshadowlands.com The gospel last Sunday was about the raising of Lazarus from the tomb after he had been dead for three days. The only account of this event is found in John Chapter 11, verses (1-44), and is the last of the signs through which Jesus showed who he was before his passion and… Read More
Happy Anniversary Pope Francis!
Image:www.americamagazine.org On Monday of this week, Pope Francis marked 10 years as head of the Roman Catholic Church by celebrating Mass with cardinals in the chapel of the Vatican’s Santa Marta residence where he has lived since his election. He never took possession of the papal apartments in the Apostolic palace used by his predecessors,… Read More
The Transfiguration of the Lord
Image: www.catholicnewsagency.com In his apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Maria, Pope St John Paul II instituted the Luminous Mysteries, also referred to as the Mysteries of Light. The Fourth Mystery is a meditation on the Transfiguration of the Lord and the gospel reading at Mass last Sunday was about this beautiful and glorious event. The word… Read More
In Town Before Christmas
Image: www.ireland.com When visiting the center of Dublin at this time of the year we all know we can expect crowds, and we have been told that after two years of Covid restrictions there will be a great swell of people converging on the city. This was in my mind when I went in… Read More
Our Lady of Guadalupe: Patroness of the Americas
Image: www.franciscanmedia.org On December 12 we celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It was December 9, 1531, when Mary appeared to a man called Juan Diego on the hill of Tepeyac, in Mexico. A poor Aztec Indian, who had been raised in line with the Aztec pagan religion, Juan had converted to Catholicism… Read More
Left Out in the Cold
Image: StSavioursPriory Two people I was talking with recently both mentioned in passing that snow is expected later in the year. This is not good news. We have been warned incessantly that we are facing a very difficult winter ahead, mainly as a consequence of the huge rise in energy costs caused by Putin’s war… Read More
A Brother to All-Brother Kevin Crowley OFM
Image:www.radiomaria.ie When history looks back at poverty and homelessness in Dublin in our times and at the attempts which were made to tackle them, three names, in particular, will be to the fore: Brother Kevin Crowley OFM, Sister Stanislaus Kennedy RSC and Father Peter McVerry SJ. Recently the first of these, at the age of… Read More
Saint Rose of Lima
Image:www.catholicnewsagency.com This week on Tuesday the 23rd we celebrated the feast day of St Rose of Lima who was the first canonized saint of the Americas. She was born in Lima in 1585, the eleventh child of Spanish Indian parents. From her earliest days, she showed an awareness of God and His Son Jesus. When… Read More